Racial prejudice in Elizabeth England!!~?

Question

How would you account for the depth of racial prejudice in Elizabeth England (Where there were very few black people)?

What is this question mean ?

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_slavery.cfm

If you have a time to read this article, can you please read it and answer this question please T_T ? It only took me about 2 minutes to read it ...

Answer 1

Bit of a loaded question there Tif. Also, the author in your piece is giving a loaded argument. This is obviously a ploy to encourage debate.

Firstly, the assumption is that race is a black issue only. However, if you happen to be Irish, Welsh, Scotish, or (God Forbid) Spanish (See Amada), the English will not like you (In fact, your a bloody foreigner if you come from the next village).

Before we talk about racism, lets look at the slave trade. The slave trade had been flourishing on the African continent for centuries. Long established routes were plied by both the Arab and African peoples, selling slaves internally and for export. The biggest external market being some of the Indian courts. The first slaves arrived in the Russian court after a surplus to india was sold on.

Africans are not the only slave peoples. Many white European salors, captured by pirates or Arabian Despots would be kept as galley slaves (Life expectancy of 2 years).

The original justification for black slaves came via the Spanish and the church. It was deamed that since it was known that Africans practiced the art of canibalism, then they were beyond redemption and, logically, less than human.

Although the West had control over some ports and used these as slaving centres, the white Europeans made no great inroads into Africa until comparitavly recently. It was known as the dark continent because little was known about the interior, not because of the colour of the peoples who lived there. In fact, the North West coast was known as the white mans grave yard, due to high malaria and disease mortality.

Slaves were captured by their countrymen, who either specialized in slave precurement (Ashanti), or who just wanted to remove the competing tribes. They would then be sold to the established Arabic traders, or taken to the slave ports.

Despite what the article claims, slavery was not necessarily racist. It was business. Slavery was common place througout the globe, not merely confined to white Eropeans. They were just particularly proficient at organising and moving slaves, since they had the technical ability in the form of ship trade routes. I.E. They had the logistics knowledge.

There you go Tiffany, hope this gives you a few counter arguments, points to consider, for your homework. P.S. Look at the history of the Blackbirders and also find out why Freetown got its name.

Luck

Answer 2

There is hardly anything in the article about racial prejudice in Elizabethan England - other than the author's supposition.

It may well be wrong to say there were very few black people in London, it was th biggest port in the world. I know Elizabeth herself made a comment about "divers black people" that some have construed as racist.

The article ignores the fact that the Spanish had enslaved and killed the natives of the Caribbean. White settlers weren't numerous or strong enough to work the plantations. The Slave trade had an economic cause not a racialist one.

Also Elizabeth I reigned long before the slave trade got going.